


forget-me-not and i won't forget you

by ragoczy_marci



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Child Abuse, Depression, F/M, Faked Suicide, Hospitals, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, References to Drugs, Religious Guilt, Symbolism, Underage Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:41:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28830567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragoczy_marci/pseuds/ragoczy_marci
Summary: " [...] Tooru Oikawa hated to talk about his family, he shunned the questions and he never mentioned anything about it. He never wanted to come up with cheap lies about how wonderful his circumstances are and he couldn't afford to show his face under his cracked porcelain-mask to pinpoint that he is not that everyone expects him to be. He felt like he couldn't bear the fact that everyone would think that he is just a disappointment. [...] "TW/CW- non-con- hetero- and homosexual relationships presented more and less explicit- religious trauma- depression/suicidal thoughts/compulsion to conform- domestic abuse/drug use mentioned
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Kudos: 14





	forget-me-not and i won't forget you

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [nefelejcs és sosem felejtelek](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/744825) by Ragóczy Marci. 



> Author's/translator's note: Hey, I'm the author and translator for this short story. I just wanted to say that I am not a native English speaker and this is my first story not in my native language. It took quite a long time to translate it, but I know it isn't perfect, so feel free to point out my mistakes and the confusing parts (kindly!)
> 
> Thank you and have a good time!
> 
> Marci

Everyone loved Tooru Oikawa. Tooru Oikawa was perfect. He could put a smile on every one of his fans' faces with just a glance of his eyes and he could set everyone afire as much as no other could. Tooru Oikawa was like a huge, beautiful bouquet that people collected and put together with the most lovely wildflowers they could find. He was the sense-blinding riot of colors and scents.

It was an early autumn day, the sky was sumptuously mid-blue and the air was heavy from the salty steam. It was just past four in the afternoon when Tooru Oikawa stepped outside of the gym sweaty and tired. He had a hard time standing still, his knee hurt more than anything, but he couldn't let his smile break for even a moment. As a team captain, he didn't have the luxury to be seen as weak.

He wiped his face with the collar of his white shirt and he set out for the club room, so he could change into his uniform and finally walk home. Hajime Iwaizumi - his best friend - didn't even come to practice so he couldn't catch him for a walk in the sunset or have a circuit to the nearby market. For that matter, he was expected to be home by his mother.

The boy was just starting to climb the stairs when he heard quiet sniffling. He first peeked at the first floor then he checked the ground floor. He saw a girl lean against the wall, she buried her face between her updrawn knees. Her long, maroon hair almost entirely covered her small body. Her skirt was crumpled, her socks slipped down and she wore inside shoes on the court. Tooru Oikawa took pity on her.

When he crouched in front of her he didn't care about the stabbing pain in his knee and he didn't care about the time. He didn't care about the slow, lazy wind that blew dust in his eyes. He didn't care about anything, just put a wide, shining smile on his face and addressed the girl in a kind voice. "What's the problem?" the boy could bring happiness to anyone as no one else could, he never even needed more than a couple of words.

"Iwaizumi..." the girl mumbled without even looking up. She attended class just a year below Tooru Oikawa and she could identify his voice from one thousand others. "Hajime Iwaizumi rejected me."

The boy sensed that something similar happened when his friend didn't even show up in practice twenty minutes late. This girl wasn't Hajime Iwaizumi's first rejection and his words were never as kind as Tooru Oikawa's. He never thought about what he was saying to others so his sentences hurt everyone around him like shards of glass. On the other hand, the captain was more of an overthinker about his words, his shards of glass fretted like the ones in slow rivers, and instead of his heart he put glass-pearls in the others' hand and they could thread them and hide them in their chests.

In these times Tooru Oikawa could hate his best friend, but somehow his heart didn't allow him to be mad at him. This feeling was like a double-edged sword and he wasn't sure that he even injured Hajime Iwaizumi. The boy wore a thicker ice-armor that the islands had below Antarctica. Nobody knew what he was hiding in himself.

"Iwa-chan is so mean." he rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna talk with him. On the one hand, because no one deserves his brutishness and on the other hand pretty girls like you don't deserve any kind of rejection." he was going to stand up to go on his way but the girl grabbed his wrist. Her nails cut Oikawa's skin but this wasn't enough to wipe down his smile, only his eyes were questioning.

"Please don't talk to him about it..." her voice was shaking. Her brown hair was hiding her face so the boy didn't see anything but the sharp sound was enough for him to know that that was about something really important. "He... he said that he already loves someone."

Tooru Oikawa was shocked when he heard the words. His friend never mentioned that he is in love with someone although he thought that they have no secrets between them. As long they could remember they knew each other and were as close as two friends could be but at the moment Oikawa felt like he was thrown out to the other side of Iwaizumi's ice-armor without any kind of warnings. He didn't know why but this feeling hurt him more than the times when he had to comfort the girls his friend broke and throw away like nothing.

He gulped hard when he sensed the first crack on his smiling porcelain-mask. That wasn't even big or bold, it even spirited away in the sparkling glisten but Tooru Oikawa knew that off pat and it annoyed him more than anything from the first second.

"Then how could I help?" he smiled again at the girl whose nails were nearly biting his flesh.

"Just kiss me. I want to forget everything."

She dragged Tooru Oikawa to her as he was just a helpless ragdoll and the boy abominated that feeling. He abominated that everyone around him thought about him as he was their own just because he had enough kindness to cut up no one near him.

Tooru Oikawa didn't want this kiss. He didn't desire the pink lips that were sticky from the lip gloss, he didn't long for the girl, by choice he wouldn't even touch her shoulders, but he wouldn't let himself throwing glass-shards instead of pearls to someone as answers. He wouldn't tear her heart out in such a vulnerable state just because he wanted to push off her. He thought that the girl deserved it after his friend hurt her in that way, moreover, it was the bare minimum.

With the kiss, the girl stole a flower from Tooru Oikawa's bouquet but he didn't really mind it because he still had loads of flowers and others needed it more than him. "If I won't have enough, I'll just pick some from the side of the road... I'll find better ones in no time." thought the boy and he completely let himself dissolve into the kiss. He didn't care about his throbbing knee, he didn't care about the fact that he had to go home, he didn't care about his mother and he didn't care about her throwing a tantrum because of him being late. He didn't care about the empty stomach, the girl's thick, sticky saliva, the crack on his porcelain-mask and he even forgot about the bitterness eating away his soul for a moment. 

❀❀❀

Tooru Oikawa was sitting in the aged-tiled corridor of the hospital. The light almost didn't sweep through the dirty windows so the whole place was in a creepy twilight. They haven't turned on the radiators although in the prefecture the temperature was below fifty degrees at the beginning of November. The boy contracted his dark green jacket on himself and he elongated his legs. He nervously checked the time on his phone every minute but other than that he tucked his cold fingers into the pockets of his jacket. He stared at the door which wasn't opening, not even for God's sake, the handle was not moving. In the silence, he only heard his own breathing which was billowing suffocative through the cold corridor and Oikawa felt like he was choking like he couldn't take a breath. The silence was gnawing his lungs and his throat.

By choice, he would swallow the bitterness that drowned all of his taste buds but in honor of every of his attempt he just got another handful of black grime between his lips. He restlessly squeezed his eyes, he hated the fact that he was aware of even the buzz of a fly outside of his clear ice-armor. He envied Iwaizumi of his armor that was so thick that even the sharpest blade couldn't go through it. If he could he would be as cold and as selfish as his friend but he knew too well that he couldn't change his sparkling bright smile and his sunset orange fondler aura. There were too many times that he was injured by shards of glass, snares, and knives to never even have a thought of giving anything to anyone other than smooth glass-pearls. He even disposed of the best sparkling culverkeys and fiery red, succulent poppy-flowers from his bouquet. He felt like he only worth anything in the eyes of the others if he gave everything to them so he never hesitated to open his palms so everyone could choose anything from his belongings like it was a garage-sale where everything is free.

"Tooru." an elderly woman's smoker, hard voice cut out Oikawa from his star-gazing so he peered up. He felt sick from the snap-clean doctor's coat which had a dark-oak rosary hanging from its pocket. If he got a sight of even one crucifix the memories came to his mind about the Bibles piled upon his mother's desk and the Sunday church services where they wanted to screw out everything about him that made him Tooru Oikawa. In these time engrams wreathed in him about the prevaricator, dissembler people, about the priest who stole and overran his pastel purple meadow-saffrons, about his father who broke objects on the poor boy's bones if he didn't remember to the prayers correctly and about the congregation which followed his every step with scornful looks until his skin burnt blebby from the scorcher sights. He stood up slowly from the bench, he slowly elongated his jarring limbs. His body was thinner than most of his classmates', he buried himself in the sea of loose clothes so he could feel like he never even left the warm blanket's safe softness.

He followed the woman as they crossed the rusty doorstep. The room's walls were once painted sky-blue, but the paint greyed through the years and at the corners of the chattels you could see that the plaster already fell off. They sat at the opposite sides of the mahogany desk and even though the woman searched for the other's dark eyes, she couldn't find them because the boy forbore the eye contact and only looked at the tip of his shoe. Finally, the woman broke the silence that was crawling up on the walls like black ink with her voice. "How do you get along with your parents nowadays?"

Tooru Oikawa hated to talk about his family, he shunned the questions and he never mentioned anything about it. He never wanted to come up with cheap lies about how wonderful his circumstances are and he couldn't afford to show his face under his cracked porcelain-mask to pinpoint that he is not that everyone expects him to be. He felt like he couldn't bear the fact that everyone would think that he is just a disappointment.

"I won't get along with two drug addict that smiles on everyone else but me. I won't forgive them that they crippled me for life, but you already know that Kano-san." his voice was desperate and he felt like the tiny room turned into a huge stadium that he needed to fill up with just his sounds. He grasped into his tights that made the marks of the glass-shard-words bleed again. He rather felt the stabbing pain than the emptiness.

"You'll have to..." the woman started to take notes on the computer. The loud noise of the keyboard made Oikawa remember the hail and the day he ran away from home. It was five years ago but every time the memory came back to his mind he wanted to start laughing uncontrollably because a person with their senses would never maverick on their twelfth birthday with a backpack and with one thousand and two hundred yens in his pocket. The noise of the typewriting filled the whole room. "We decided that we won't take you away from your parents. They have a right for you."

Tooru Oikawa wanted to shout and loudly cry, throw the heavy desk and buckle up, run away, and never move at the same time. The words broke apart the hope-tower that he built in months, years, and it blew up every detail of his safely made world in a second. Oikawa's tunnel no longer had a light and nothing remained to him other than the dense darkness from where he had no chance to find his freedom. His life turned into a labyrinth without an exit in just a minute.

He knew that he would turn eighteen in just a few months but he had no odd to get accepted into any kind of higher education that he was interested in and the fact that these people haven't even introduced his problem to the guardianship office he won't get enough money on his birthday to be independent and rent an apartment on the other side of Japan. There were two roads ahead of him - the others were obturated by his own shattered tower - stuck forever in the Sunday church services and between the walls, he hated so much or to become a prostitute and to be honest, neither of those options was enticing to him. He wanted to stay calm but honestly, if he could he would walk out from the small room, through the semi-dark corridor and after he would step outside to the pinching cold of November he would run as far as his knee and lungs let him and he would end his life at that exact spot.

He glanced at his hand, he was squeezing the seven withered flowers. If it depended on him he would still have a huge, colorful bouquet but everyone was stealing the ones they liked the most as it was a privilege to them, as they deserved it. Everyone thought that Tooru Oikawa's body was theirs and their property, anyone's but his. Although some of them held dear to the burning yellow narcissus and snow-white roses the boy didn't see them again so couldn't care less if they threaded on them or not. He hoped that the world would give him infinity flowers because all he really wanted to do is help others, he wanted no one to be sad anymore. If his bouquet had no end he wouldn't even mind if people continued to rob him of his flowers.

❀❀❀

Tooru Oikawa's phone rang. His ringtone was nothing special, even though he used his phone for years now he never felt the need to change the factory settings. The sun had already set so the streets of the city were only saved from pitch-dark by the yellowy, diffuse lamps of the public lighting. The boy sat at an abandoned playground squeezing seven flowers. Although he ferreted for other beautiful pieces in all of his free time he only found snags - everyone picked them before he could and no one gave him new ones. Seven lonely flowers, that's all he had and the thousands of glass-pearls that he shredded from himself with his words and which loudly broke apart when landing on the parquetry. 

He carefully grabbed his phone not letting his withered, pathetic bouquet for even a moment, the tips of his fingers were white from the snaggy grabbing. On the screen, Aki Muraoka's name was flickering. Oikawa wanted to talk to nobody, especially not to Hajime Iwaizumi's girlfriend.  
He never wanted to see how happy they are, how happy they are without him. He felt helpless and he was mad about it. He knew his best friend too well and he knew that his glass-shard-words affected everyone but him, only his skin became thick enough to not bleed after all of his friend's sentences. He was the only one that could stay near Iwaizumi even if he was locked outside from his friend's ice-armor and never asked for his clinging, voluble love. He didn't want anyone to melt his heart of ice, he didn't want to step into the sun so his sparkling protection could slip off, he wasn't ready for it. He wasn't even sure if he would be ready for it anytime soon.

Tooru Oikawa picked up the phone with shaking fingers after the seventh ring then he brought it to his ear. Muraoka's voice was heart-broken although the boy thought that her words were so quiet because of the bad gradient. 

"Oiks, I think Iwaizumi is cheating on me... come over, please..." the boy hated the nickname but he vainly told that to Muraoka at least sixty-four times she never stopped using it so he eventually just gave up. Oikawa knew that this moment would come - that his friend will leave the girl with a knife in her heart - but he never thought that this would happen just two weeks after they started going out. He knew that Hajime Iwaizumi is a heartless asshole but he never expected this.

He was squeezing only seven flowers and he thought that the girl deserved at least one of them. Oikawa felt that it was his duty to ask for forgiveness in the other's hearts after his friend threw them away just like you do with a used gum so he stood up from the strident swing and set off in the cold evening wind. He wrapped his dark-green jacket tighter and tighter around himself as he was walking in the defunct, frightening streets. He only heard his jarring old shoe echoing between the buildings, everything was silent other than that. 

After half an hour he was standing in front of the girl's apartment disheveling and leaning on his knees. Lately, his knee hurt more and more, and playing came with more misery but he couldn't give it up. The volleyball was the only thing that made him less lonely and embittered and the court was the only place where he never had to cower from others robbing him of his leftover, wilted flowers. 

He just stood in front of the door for a couple of seconds before he ranged the bell. The two-story house was completely dark, a frighteningly friendless silence overlain on the city, Oikawa directly felt like if he was looking on the world through a glass-shell, if he wasn't a part of it if he was just watching the actions on linen. Of course, he knew that thinking things like that was nonsense, life sophisticatedly gave him a middle-finger at its own pleasure so he would never forget that he didn't live in a candy-floss-pink storybook but in the inhuman and heartbreaking truth. 

Muraoka opened the door. The click of the lock echoed in Oikawa's ear before he would elevate his eyes from his shoes to the girl's face. As he raked through her he observed so many things in her that he never thought he would.  
He saw the marks of the glass-shards, the bruises from the melted ice-armor and he saw the buckled skin from the stares. In her ice-blue, freezing eyes he glimpsed himself, he saw the toddler Tooru who knew nothing about the world and he saw himself without his porcelain-mask. He shuddered and by choice, he would pull aside his look but there was something mesmerizing in the girl that didn't let him resist. 

They didn't speak, Oikawa was the one who broke the silence. He accommodated her a sunflower in the dark. He chose the most beautiful one from his seven flowers and although it was sweltering in his hand when the other one took it from him it turned into more alive than it was before. Its leaves were no longer dry and it's spilt golden pedals grew again in just a blink of an eye. The cold evening in late November turned into a Spring dawning at the doorstep. 

As the girl stroked her tear-stained face with the soft pedals she brightened up and her eyes filled up with shameless greed instead of deep sadness. Tooru Oikawa shivered and gulped. By choice, he would run away and never look back, he would pack all of his belongings and would travel to another country with the money he collected throughout the years but all he could only wave his white flag and give his body to her. He felt like he worth nothing, his barg was no longer full of gold so he didn't understand why were all the pirates searching through every inch of it with their slim fingers every time.

They were laying in her bed, together in the semidark apartment. Tooru felt like his hands were handcuffed and his clothes were ripped off of him with force but no one held a loaded gun to his head. He wanted back up but his voice didn't allow him to speak up and run away. His muscles were in a strange cramp that didn't let him move even an inch. His body was shaking but the room was warm and his heart beat fast but he never wanted these touches. 

Muraoka kissed Oikawa's neck then she slowly headed towards his shoulder with small, cold pecks on his burning skin. The boy felt no butterflies in his stomach and no tingles in his body from her smell, he just turned sick from the essence of the millions of flowers.  
He felt like he should do something but he was scared to do anything. He never desired the touch of Muraoka's soft fingers and her round breasts rubbing against his chest. 

The other seventeen-year-old boys would be filled with lust if they saw a naked girl's picture and Tooru should have reacted the same as others. No matter how much he struggled he only felt disgusted by her wide hip and narrow waist. He wasn't in love with Muraoka, he didn't even like her, if he could he would push away her full lips as far as he could but he couldn't forget the girl's marks from the glass-shards. He wouldn't forgive himself if he gave anyone those kinds of marks after what happened to him. He knew exactly how slow the heart heals that was stabbed with a knife and he wouldn't even wish for his enemies to go over hell like had to go through alone. Even the thought crossed his mind for a moment that he could just stay so he wouldn't have to walk in the freezing streets or go home to the prison of cold, grey walls. Anyway, it would be selfish for him to leave the girl alone when no one cared for her. 

Tooru Oikawa decided that he would stay in the piggery of the lustful touches and flower-thrower acts. He kissed Muraoka's lips like he always wished for it and he stroked on her waist like he was burning in the flames of lust too. He gave his droopy flowers to her body, he fed her starving soul and his ice-armor that was slowly forming between them. With every move, a piece of his porcelain-mask has fallen off of his face which he swept off of their bodies without any pain.

They sat in the window and watched the sunrise. Oikawa wasn't sparkling anymore in the light and he was squeezing only one forget-me-not. They both lit their second cigarette, the smoke danced in the wind of November then disappeared like it never even existed.  
The boy was watching the white filter which became more yellow and more dreggish with every drag and he exactly felt like the cotton. He wasn't more than something that everyone would step on and leave on the concrete by choice. 

❀❀❀

Tooru Oikawa was sitting in the hidden arbor behind the gym with a yellowed book from the antique-store. He wasn't reading it, he was just looking at the wrinkled pages and the coffee-stains on the paper. He was mesmerized by the faded ink of the old typewriter.  
He took off his sweater, in late March it was warm enough to wear a short-sleeved shirt after classes. He stared at the blue hyaline and started thinking. The graduation ended an hour ago and he had no idea what he was going to do after the ceremony. He applied to no university, he knew that he didn't study enough in the years of high school to start school with a scholarship at the other side of Japan and he had little to no money although he worked until after midnight every day in a nearby bar as a bartender. 

He was overwhelmed under the stress. By choice, he would leave all the baggage and lie on the floor, but he couldn't do it. As a captain, as a worker, and as an almost grownup he couldn't.  
If he could he would even forget about the cursed flowers, he never wanted to be a bouquet that gave the opportunity to others to rob him of everything. There were only a couple of pieces left on his face from his porcelain-mask. His smile faded, the Grand King was nowhere to be found even though he was once had that nickname. He was left a wreck, a heap of trampled stubs. 

"Shittykawa, what are you doing here?" Hajime Iwaizumi threw his bag in front of Oikawa's feet, he whipped up his head. The standing boy's look was more rigid than usual, his eyes were sparkling frighteningly but the other one welcomed him with a wide smile, you could almost see the tiny stars dancing around his head. Tooru despised his smile but when he was near Hajime it shinned up on his face naturally. Around him, it wasn't a painful grimace, a cheap acting. 

"I don't want to walk out of the gate... I don't want it to end." he sighed as he closed the book. "I don't want to leave these three years as it never happened."

"Nobody said that you have to forget everything." Oikawa was shocked when he heard the words of the other. Although they knew each other forever Iwaizumi never addressed words to Tooru that were glass-pearls instead of glass-shards. Actually, to be exact he never shedded glass-pearls from himself. "I'm gonna stay here... So if you're gonna stay too you won't have to forget me. And the team is going to stand behind you even though you're not the captain anymore." 

"It's good to hear that..." the boy glanced at his palm with the lonely, droopy flower in it then he took out a pack of cigarettes from his bag what left Iwaizumi shocked. 

"Are you smoking?" his voice was angry, but his word didn't turn into shards, it was more like he pulled Oikawa close to him with his ice-armor so he could even hear his heartbeat. Tooru forgot about the inhuman world, about his bouquet, about his mask, and about his family for just a minute and he probably felt loved for the first time in his life. 

In the wind, the early-bloomed sakura-petals danced the waltz, the city went silent and the shock of the recognition overcame the boy as everything got meaning. Oikawa stared at his friend's dark brown eyes and without breaking the eye-contact he shrugged his shoulders and trotted out a cigarette and a lighter from the box. Iwaizumi just shook his head. 

"I hope Trashykawa that you're planning on giving from that to me."

"This is the last one." he answered as he took a drag from the cigarette then he licked his dry lips. "But one half is yours."

They sat closer and closer together and they took drag after drag. The smoke danced with the pink petals in the wind under the blue sky, there were no clouds to vary it. They were together and they were alone, the world hid them under a veil where they never ran out of time and their last years together never ended. The school's silent court was the only place where the burden of adulthood couldn't overtake them and they both wanted to stay just a little. They couldn't let go of the memories of their careless, mutual childhood.

Oikawa studied Iwaizumi's face, he wanted to remember every detail so well that he could sculpture a statue of him with no pictures. Tooru's heart was beating faster than during any volleyball competition and his body was tingled just by the fact that his best friend was sitting that close to him probably the last time in his life. 

"Iwa-chan...." he looked at the sky. "Do you know what is my favorite film?"

"Of course I know Crappykawa. You made me watch Cloud Atlas at least a thousand times." he was staring at the ground, at their shoes. 

"And do you know why that is my favorite?"

"You never said it Trashykawa and I can't read your mind..." although Hajime's words weren't nice there were no glass-shards to hurt Oikawa, there were millions of bitter glass-pearls falling out of his mouth and rolling apart on the concrete. 

"You know... they die in one life... but they find each other in another life." Iwaizumi was studying Oikwa's bitter smile that was no longer hidden by his porcelain-mask. He stared at his friend as he was fighting with his tears and as he was hanging on his last decayed flower with all of his power. He no longer saw the stuck-up, loud and amazing boy with whom he became friends years ago, he only saw a frightened child and he got scared. He never thought that he would see Tooru Oikawa at the edge of crying on the last day of their high school years. 

"When did you become so philosophical? Are you dying...?" he grabbed his hand frightened but his friend just elanced their fingers. 

"Iwa-chan I am not dying. I was just thinking lately." his voice didn't tinkle, it was fully serious. He didn't even force a smile on his face, he just leaned close to Hajime and stared deeply into his eyes. Iwaizumi glanced at Oikawa's soul for a moment through his eyes, he saw all the hidden suffering but he couldn't speak. 

They approached each other with a silent agreement and gently touched each other's lips. They stroked each other with closed eyes. Tooru Oikawa felt like there were hundreds and hundreds of fireworks lit up in his body and blowing up sparkling in the dark night. They probably never felt so safe and so home as they did in this kiss. They shared years worth of pain, flowers, glass-shards and glass-pearls. They were alone, no one was staring at them with argus, judging eyes. They were mesmerized by the bitterness of the cigarette on their lips and none of them wanted to keep off. 

Their kiss felt like hours, they separated with tiny pecks then they stared again into each others' eyes. 

Oikawa provided his last forget-me-not from his bouquet to Iwaizumi who carefully took it from him. That was the first flower that they didn't steal from him and he didn't give away because of his sense of duty.  
The petals were alive again in a blink of an eye and the flower glowed in a deep-blue shade, it was a million times more beautiful than it was when it was new. Oikawa's last one was the prettiest of all of them, that was the one that he held the longest time. Its leaves were wrapping themselves around Iwaizumi's fingers like bines. 

"Please never forget me..." Hajime was kissed by his friend before he could say anything. 

❀❀❀

Tooru Oikawa was standing at the airport with only his backpack, phone, and eight-hundred thousand yens. He was leaning against the glass watching the cloudy sky of April and inside of his mind, he tried to cut all of the ribbons that were bounding him to Japan. He tried to forget the volleyball, his childhood, the semi-dark corridor of the hospital... and Iwaizumi. It hurt him that he had to leave without a word just one day after their kiss but he already planned everything months before their graduation. 

He planned every detail of how he's going to fry the fat out of his parents and how he's not going to say a word about that to anyone. The last few days of acting were straight suffering to him. He was a good actor but he got cocky because of the money in his pocket and the feeling of being finally free. He wanted to live like he's dying because he was going to leave everything behind.

Although he was confident from the first minute and the universe was playing into his hands he seemed like he was lurching. More and more questions were checking in his mind and no matter how hard he tried to keep himself busy his thoughts were louder every minute. 

I wonder if the sky is the same in Argentine as in Japan... How much will it take to learn proper Spanish? Will it be hard to be comfortable with the yen-peso exchange? Will I find new friends? Will I really forget the past and start again with a clean sheet?

He had to lean against the wall, he felt his knees weaken. He never even traveled outside of the prefecture and now at seventeen, he planned to fly across the world and never return.  
He saw the train that he traveled with every day at the horizon and the schools that he fought against in the colors of Aoba Josai through the window. He smelled the sea of Japan and felt like it danced through the airport's door then ran around the people and benches just to play with his mind. He remembered the meat buns after practices, the slow summers when he walked with his friends in the sunset, the long-continued matches, and the nights spent at the old playground. 

He felt homesick but he hasn't checked in yet. He rushed in the direction of the bathrooms with shaking legs, he nearly broke the door, and avoiding the people's questioning looks he closed on himself one of the open stall's door. He dishevely slipped off against the wall while he was turning on his phone.  
He opened the nominal roll and scrolled through it. By choice, he would call every single one of his old teammates so they could talk down him from his plan and would drag him away from the airport despite him resisting but in the end, he only tapped on one number to write a message. 

He started typing long paragraphs in which he was trying to explain everything the best three times but he felt none of them were appropriate so he deleted all the characters and only sent one sentence. For a couple of minutes, he was just staring at his phone then he turned it off and took it apart. He broke his SIM-card in two but kept the memory card and placed it in his wallet. He couldn't let go of the memories, the pictures, and his childhood yet.  
He threw away the other remaining parts of the phone in the waiting room. He couldn't afford to back up from a new, better life. 

❀❀❀

Hajime Iwaizmi has been watching the stars from their rooftop until past midnight so he woke up late the day after their graduation. He slowly stretched himself then wearily washed his face and sat down at the table to have breakfast with his family. His father read the newspaper - he loudly rattled with the paper -, his mother was typing on her laptop, his elder sister was heatedly talking about the new rumors on her university, and his younger brother was just quietly eating. The day seemed idyllic with its ordinary track but Iwaizumi's thoughts were louder than usual. He couldn't disregard the afternoon of the day before no matter how hard he tried.

He was the happiest man alive, he wanted to open all the windows and shout out that Oikawa kissed him and he worried more than anything at the same time. He was concerned about his friend's strange behavior, his serious words, and the fact that his friend gave his last flower to him.  
The moment he finished breakfast he rushed up to his room without a word so he could consult with Tooru a meeting where they can talk about how to continue the things between them. Lately, he was so focused on the exams and the practices that he didn't even know what his friend is going to do after school. He didn't know where he continued his studies if he even thought about that. He felt like he knew nothing about his friend despite growing up together. 

When he turned on his phone Oikawa's message first got lost in the huge amount of congratulations but when Iwaizumi saw the short SMS he felt more lost between the other's instructable roads than ever before. It was purposeless to call him, the service center said that that number no longer exists. His friend didn't answer his texts, he never even opened them. If Hajime would try to find him on any kind of social media he wouldn't have any success, his friend disappeared from everywhere like he never even existed in the first place.

His parents knew nothing about him either no matter how many times he knocked on their door. There was almost nothing missing from Toor's room, only his laptop, running shoes, and an alien plushie that he got from his best friend for his sixteenth birthday. There was no mess, the leftover belongings were probably more organized than before. His clean clothes were folded up, his pens were put in a plastic cup, and his old textbooks were collected in a straight pile. If Iwaizumi could contact his friend he would never even consider that something was not perfectly alright.

Days, weeks, then months passed without any information about the boy. Hajime couldn't get up from his bed and attend school most of the days, by choice he wouldn't interact with anyone. He was squeezing the beautifully blooming forget-me-not, he put his hand on his chest. He was left with nothing from the reachless, beautiful, perfect boy, only some fumbling pictures, the flower, and his last, short text.

"I'm so sorry."

❀❀❀

"I'm here Prettykawa, I haven't forgotten you..." Iwaizumi mumbled while his groom was sobbing on his shoulders. The warm, summer wind danced through the window into the tiny Argentine apartment and glazed through the two boy's hair. "You don't have to worry anymore... I'm here." he was patting his back. 

"But... But I left you in Japan... And... And I came here alone..." Iwaizumi bearly heard what was the other saying but he already had to comfort him thousands of times after his nightmares and had to say that he is not mad at him anymore. As Tooru was talking more and more about his life he was understanding the actions of him more and more and came to the conclusion that he probably did the right thing in his state even though back then he thought he was evil and heartless. 

"We moved together and you know that I am not mad at you..." he tried to comfort Oikawa. "And soon you will be my husband, remember?" he kissed the white gold ring on the boy's left hand which did not have a name engraved in it, it was something that meant them more than some kanji and a simple formality.  
Tooru was nervously nodding then Hajime turned his head to the blue flower laying on the nightstand. Although Oikawa knew that his partner never let the flower out of his hands in fifteen years his eyes became watery from the emotions again. 

"I love you so much..." he hugged the boy even tighter.

In Hajime Iwaizumi's ring, there was just a botanical name, while in Tooru Oikawa's there was a whole sentence.

Forget-me-not and I won't forget you.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's/translator's note: I hope you enjoyed the story, if you have any questions/notes, feel free to comment/message me! Thank you for reading it and I'm sorry for all the readers who read the BokuAka fanfiction called In Another Life (there was an easter egg about it, but you probably noticed it). Sorry for any mistakes!
> 
> Marci


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